Could Electric Bikes Be Killing Off America’s Car Addiction?

LockH

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amberwolf said:
would be nice, but not a chance.

HAHA... Of course, many might not like getting around towns faster while saving TONS of money. Silly me... :lol:
 
Could Electric Bikes Be Killing Off America’s Car Addiction?
No, the SUV killed off America's car addiction.
 
^^ :lol:
 
Cagers and riders are mostly different animals.

Hens would not fly to save their lives.
 
MadRhino said:
Cagers and riders are mostly different animals.
Hens would not fly to save their lives.

Hehe... I say again:
4db9f74886cc2a024e456c65eed56393.jpg


:wink:
 
LockH said:
amberwolf said:
would be nice, but not a chance.

HAHA... Of course, many might not like getting around towns faster while saving TONS of money. Silly me... :lol:

The faster bit can occur in some highly congested cities, but it certainly is not the case in the general Phoenix area and I'm betting it isn't generally the case.

Saving money is hard to do unless you fully get rid of your car and don't have to use an UBER, Lyft or taxi from time to time. I figure I might break even on my commuter e-bike expenses in about three years. Brake and tires costs seem to add up fast on an ebike unless you get moped or motorcycle tires.
 
Hehe... " some highly congested cities"... like as in more than half of the human population?

Like, already more than half the folks living on the island of New York don't own any horseless carriage ("car")... apparently these daze termed an "SUV". ("Sport" and "Utility" vehicle...) Don't ya just love marketing?
 
LockH said:
Hehe... " some highly congested cities"... like as in more than half of the human population?

I dunno. The Phoenix and Las Vegas areas have been among the fastest growing areas in the U.S. since I was a young un. And they don't grow in density much at all. They sprawl out. This is happening all over the U.S. as well. A LOT of people are moving away from higher density and toward lower density.
 
What is killing off the America's past history of individual car ownership is ...

The High Cost of Ownership,

A large percent of American's just don't make enough money to pay for the High Rent / High House Payment that we have here in the U.S. , and a car payment / maintenance cost. Then add to that the once again rising Gas/Petrol cost. ( the total cost of ownership is much higher than most people think )
If you do not have a new car under warranty where I live, the cost of repairs are just too expensive . ( California is a very expensive place to run a business )

I have added the cost of the smallest lease payment on a car for three years, and even then the price of so called ownership ( 3 years ) is $ 9,000
that is for the small , cheap cars, and does not even include Insurance , Gas, Oil Change or any other cost such as tires.

For many people taking an Uber or Lyft Ride and sometimes renting a car is the only option affordable .

If the Elio ever becomes a real product that actually gets built and available for sale then Ownership , at least for a vehicle like that , for many of us ownership of a vehicle will finally become a reality once again.
 
Hehe... Just speaking of the USA...

us_population_1.gif


Think this means "more" traffic on the roads, maybe? I might suggest shrinking the size of personal use vehicles... rather than the "automotive industry" making larger and heavier vehicles designed to travel at speeds far in excess of urban speed limits. :wink: HELLO?
 
Hehe... Folks ("people")... The "Big Three" used to be "Food, Clothing, and Shelter"? Watt maybe overlooked "Moving" around and "Speaking" (communicating with yer neighbours/others...) (Anything else?) Re "vehicles" (One definition: any means in or by which someone travels or something is carried or conveyed; a means of conveyance or transport). Given that humans like to make babies (Hehe...) and move around, and that the size of populations is increasing... Does it not "make sense" to shrink the size of some vehicles? Not so many vehicles traveling around with empty seats and (empty) space for "cargo"?

The component parts of existence for "life" on Planet Dirt ("earth") include 1) energy generation, 2)energy storage, and 3)energy use... correct? (Ignoring "waste" for the moment... watt should be minimized in any event...)

So MY "vote" is to use the free light from Sol for generation (see "wind"... see "hydro"... see silicon cells...), and to store this energy using chemistry (see eg lithium...) then to consume this stored energy using magnets (aka "lodestone", etc) as "motors"...

... and lower waste per mile traveled (aka "poop"). :)
 
ScooterMan101 said:
A large percent of American's just don't make enough money to pay for the High Rent / High House Payment that we have here in the U.S. , and a car payment / maintenance cost. Then add to that the once again rising Gas/Petrol cost. ( the total cost of ownership is much higher than most people think )

In my area, what I see is a lot of young people choosing not to own a car so they can instead live in an expensive centrally located neighborhood that they wouldn't be able to afford if they squandered their resources on a car.

But then the location allows them to get by without one.

It looks like a clear winning strategy to me. They live better because there's more going on around them to take part in, and they get more time to spend the way they want because they don't waste a lot of each day driving.
 
^^ "squandered their resources on a car"... Watt he said. :mrgreen:
 
Maybe if 20%+ of the population wasn't on antidepressants they might understand :( We are really liking our new bike. Cecil and I are going cage free, maybe we will get a fuel efficient or electric or hybrid motorcycle for longer trips but no more cars for us! I am ashamed that it took so long for me to understand :(
 
Whoever manages to get a reliable, comfortable, practical, all-weather usable and reasonably efficient suspended velomobile on the market for around $3,000 is possibly going to get rich. Add an electric drive system to it and it would be trivial to have a machine that can keep up with cars in urban areas with minimal rider effort while getting the energy efficiency equivalent of thousands of miles per gallon of gasoline.
 
^^ Hehe... "all-weather usable"... Thinking as a life-long camper and sailor... Having pitched tents in snow and mud... sailed when wind chills was freezing spray to our lifejackets... Canadian here, eh? We got stuff like layers of clothing... warm gloves... winter boots... yer kidding re "all-weather usable", yes? :)
 
Electric autonomous on-demand vehicles of the future (2032) will be less expensive than owning/maintaining a bicycle.
 
Part of the appeal of an enclosed automobile is that one doesn't need to carry multiple sets of clothing with them in the event that the weather changes drastically.

Transferring this trait to a bicycle increases its practicality, both real and perceived, greatly.

In order to appeal to automobile users, the electric bicycle needs to be more like an automobile in terms of how it operates in order to attract interest among this demographic. However, this presents a unique opportunity to do away with most of the hazards, expense, resource consumption, and various external costs associated with automobile use.

Unless you live in a mountainous region where steep slopes are common, an open bicycle will never match the efficiency of a well-designed velomobile where drag reduction was a major consideration. Whereas an electric mountainbike might get 40 Wh/mi at 30 mph on flat ground and smooth pavement, it is possible to get an electric velomobile to get well below 10 Wh/mile in the same condition.

Then there's the fact that a velomobile operator sitting reclined usually doesn't have to worry about being thrown over the handlebars during a panic stop or get thrown head-first towards the pavement in an accident.

It's also a lot easier to keep the chainline sealed in a velomobile without running into clearance or other practical issues. This keeps dirt and grime out and maintenance costs down. I've read that it's not uncommon for a sealed chain to last over 10,000 miles in a commercial velomobile using oil for lubricant.

But at the $7,000-12,000+ price point of most commercial velomobiles, it's understandable why they are so rare. If high-volume production were done of most commercial velomobiles, their price would be a small fraction of this making them competitive with some mid-high end bicycles in terms of price. The problem is that it's currently a very niche market because the price is currently too high to appeal outside of that niche.

The velomobile I built out of my KMX trike attracts a lot of attention. I consider this a downside of operating one(I'm not an extrovert), but the fact remains that there is a lot of public interest in my machine. I can't go anywhere without people asking questions about it or asking where they can buy one, only for them to get discouraged when I tell them that the cheapest commercial models cost about 3 times more to buy than mine did to build, and that I could not build them one for cheap due to the hundreds of hours it took for me to build mine. From what I can tell, the minority of people with enough money to even think of buying one would gladly pay $3-4k for one, but not $10k.

Converting to electric will require additional expense to that, but a large amount of power and large battery pack is not needed either, and laws very state to state as well. A 750W motor conforming to the U.S. federal power limit for ebikes would be capable of getting commercial velomobiles like the Mango, Quest, and Strada to over 45 mph, but the law restricts them to 28 mph! The components for a decent 750W setup could possibly be done for under $1,000 in addition to the expense of the velomobile. This would allow the operator to use the vehicle like a car in urban areas. Even an inexpensive 500 Wh LiFePO4 pack would give more than enough range for most(especially if human power is used in conjunction with the electric drivetrain) and would be a relatively safe chemistry to use with relatively little in the way of fire hazard, and would deliver the needed peak power while not taking more than a few hundred dollars.

The biggest maintenance expense would still likely be tires and tubes. I wish I could find a low-rolling resistance motorcycle or moped tire that has a low enough Crr not to cancel out the benefits of the body shell, but the closest thing I've found is an obscure solar car tire that can only be readily gotten in Australia(Schwalbe Energizer).
 
gogo said:
Electric autonomous on-demand vehicles of the future (2032) will be less expensive than owning/maintaining a bicycle.

And provide a whole list of problems to come with them. It would be a lot easier to make autonomous airplanes due to the reduced number of objects to collide with by many orders of magnitude, but autonomous cars have so many potential unaccounted for scenarios that I find it to be an overall bad idea.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018...nomous-car-tests-after-deadly-crash-overnight
 
Where I live there is allot of countryside housing , so most of the young people I see that live out there wind up driving older , and junk type cars,
However most everyone who lives out in the countryside would not want to live in the crime infested city areas in the S.F. bay area, they are much more happy to live where they do.
Being California, it is also expensive to live " out in the country ".


I must say that Austin is a great place, I lived there for about 7 months many years ago , I road on many of the bike paths there and know it is one of the better places in the country for a cyclist to live.


Chalo said:
ScooterMan101 said:
A large percent of American's just don't make enough money to pay for the High Rent / High House Payment that we have here in the U.S. , and a car payment / maintenance cost. Then add to that the once again rising Gas/Petrol cost. ( the total cost of ownership is much higher than most people think )

In my area, what I see is a lot of young people choosing not to own a car so they can instead live in an expensive centrally located neighborhood that they wouldn't be able to afford if they squandered their resources on a car.

But then the location allows them to get by without one.

It looks like a clear winning strategy to me. They live better because there's more going on around them to take part in, and they get more time to spend the way they want because they don't waste a lot of each day driving.
 
Exactly why I do not own one,
1) cost way too high ( you can buy a used economy car for that price, I even know some one who bought a used Nissan Leaf for $10 K )
you can even buy a good used motorcycle that gets between 40-60 mph, for as low as $ 3,500 .
2) the good examples of velomobiles are in Europe, the only one I know of here in the U.S. is a piece of junk that many owners have had problems with, it is just metal frame with fabric around much if it, not very aerodynamic at all, etc.


Until the price comes down to around $ 2,500 for a bicycle version, or
$ 4,000 - $ 6,000 for a motorcycle ( electric ) version like the Elio, they are just not going to sell much here in the U.S.


The Toecutter said:
But at the $7,000-12,000+ price point of most commercial velomobiles, it's understandable why they are so rare. If high-volume production were done of most commercial velomobiles, their price would be a small fraction of this making them competitive with some mid-high end bicycles in terms of price. The problem is that it's currently a very niche market because the price is currently too high to appeal outside of that niche.
 
ScooterMan101 said:
Until the price comes down to around $ 2,500 for a bicycle version, or
$ 4,000 - $ 6,000 for a motorcycle ( electric ) version like the Elio, they are just not going to sell much here in the U.S.

Whoever manages to do this first and sell enough to justify the business of making them is probably going to make some money.

If a car can be mass produced and sold at a profit for $2500(Tata Nano, Tara Tiny, ect), then certainly an electric velomobile can be made for less than that. It's all a matter of production volume.

The problem is that in most jurisdictions with electric bicycle laws, the true potential market for electric velomobiles would be severely restricted because the ability to legally use the strengths inherent to the platform would be restricted in such a way as to keep them from performing like cars.

In most of Europe, electric assist is limited to 15 mph. In the U.S., there are so many different laws and regulations that vary city by city, county by county, state by state that its legality would be difficult for the customer to immediately ascertain, and federal law limits them to 750W/28mph.

But I think that a car-like vehicle could be made to cruise at 70 mph, with the rider inputting some of the power, and the vehicle could be done in such a way that it was practical to use in place of a car for transporting a single occupant and also consumed less than 30 Wh/mile at that speed(whereas most cars when converted to electric would consume 300+ wh/mi). Making one accelerate like a high-end motorcycle would really add some appeal, and I would think such a vehicle made capable of reaching triple digit speeds could potentially have a large market in the $15-20k price range were it not for legal restrictions, and possibly be even way cheaper than that to mass produce.

Current law exists to protect the the status quo in the U.S. of automobile use for all transport for a significant percentage of the population. The mass transit systems we used to have in the early 20th century were leaps and bounds ahead of what currently exists in most of the U.S., although things have gotten slightly better in the last two decades in parts of the country with regard to mass transit availability, cars are currently overwhelmingly more convenient to use for most people than are mass transit or electric bicycles. This also needs to change, but that won't happen as long as corporate lobbyists write the laws governing us. This country's bought government is still stuck pursuing the "what's good for GM is good for America" policy as it has been for a century now.

There's just too many chains of industries that feel entitled to our money, whether they get it "voluntarily" for each car bought, dealership repair made, or gallon of gas consumed when most of the U.S. has few or no viable and practical transport alternatives, or whether they get it forceful through the tax system that is used to fund the wars used to secure the resources that keep the industry going and the environmental damage caused by the manufacturing and consumption of the resources required to make our automobiles-reliant society function.

Car addiction in the U.S. was a deliberate policy decision more than it was a default consumer choice.
 
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